I've recently gone through a rather tricky separation. It wasn't sudden; we'd both known it was coming for months. But when the day finally arrived and we said our farewells it was hard to keep back the tears. My au pair was going home.

Anyone who has been fortunate enough to get a really good au pair or live-in nanny will know how much easier they can make life for a working mother and for the smooth running of your home. But if you are a single mother, as I am, they can offer the support, friendship and extra pair of hands that a husband or partner would normally provide.

By the time I discovered I was pregnant, the baby's father and I had split up and I knew that I simply wouldn't be able to cope by myself in the first few months. As the pregnancy moved on and thoughts of maternity nurses and live-in nannies began to evaporate in line with my cash flow, I decided to get an au pair.

I would be working from home and didn't require sole care for my baby. A friend suggested getting someone to start before the baby was born, a tip I would highly recommend to anyone contemplating having a baby in a similar situation. Lenka arrived off the bus at Victoria Station looking like a supermodel, and gave me a huge hug. I knew I'd struck it lucky.

Looking back now, the thought of a stranger arriving six weeks postpartum would have been a complete nightmare. As it was some of the early teething problems - like discouraging unwanted 'friends' who had turned up on the doorstep and explaining that it wasn't necessary to spend half an hour applying one's make-up before popping down to Somerfield - had been ironed out before George was born.

Listening to some of the experiences of friends who gave birth at the same time, I really didn't do too badly at all on my own. Sophie, in particular, felt any expectations of support from her husband disappear the night she came out of hospital. 'I had bought the car seat and assumed that Peter would have read the instructions before picking me up. It was a freezing cold night and I'd had a terrible labour. I was sitting in the car holding our tiny baby while he struggled to work out how to use the car seat. It was the beginning of the realisation that my husband had not come to terms with the baby and there was no support at all.'

Even partners who believe they are being helpful with the early stages of parenthood can be helpless in their helpfulness. A live-in nanny or au pair will not ask what they should do when a baby's nappy is full, will not shout out to you in the other room that the baby is crying when they are standing two feet away from the cot, and will not come back from what was supposed to be a weekly food shop with two bottles of champagne and some Fairy Liquid when you are in labour.

Sophie went to her mother's for the first couple of weeks after her daughter was born, but as soon as she got home she was on her own. 'Peter did learn to use the steriliser, because I said he really had to, but that was all. You have a child with a man, give up nine months and I naively thought we would share the baths together, learn how to do the nappies together - and it didn't happen. He wouldn't even take the pushchair out of the car.'

Lenka, meanwhile, was helping lug home nursery furniture from Ikea pre-baby and was on hand to provide welcome cups of tea and food with a willing smile in those early days after his birth. OK, she did knock over rather a large cup of said tea on my newly-laid carpet. And culinary skills were not necessarily her strong point, but the food would all just appear without having to ask and was always lovingly and beautifully presented. For a new mother, the sense of being cared for was wonderful.

Psychologist Dr Gillian Cappuccini, who has looked at the division of roles within the family, agrees that paid help can be a good thing for mothers who are alone or feel unsupported. 'Women can have trouble getting their partners to do anything when a baby is born. It's to do with power within the relationship. Men seem to want to assert their independence, and women, who are bought up to co-operate, can't understand why they don't want to co-operate.'

Cappuccini cites a study looking at lesbian couples who have had babies. 'The same issues didn't arise. The two partners just did what they were better at.' When gender association is removed, tasks just become tasks.

For older children of divorced or separated parents, the presence of a live-in carer can also be a tremendous help. Sandra Botterell has had live-in help since she and her husband divorced when her daughter Amy was two. 'When she was younger I wanted a trained person, but from the time she was about eight (Amy is now 12) I've had au pairs. They've been a friend to Amy and a huge support to me. I've never considered anything else, like an after-school club. It's always been important to me that Amy is cared for in her own home and as far as possible I wanted her to have a fairly routine day.'

She agrees that the relationship with a single mother and her live-in help can become more intense than when there are two parents in the home. 'It's by necessity a more dependant relationship and they know it and you are aware of it, too. I have found it hard sometimes to make the boundaries clear. A single mother and a single child can be quite claustrophobic anyway, and when you have an au pair they want you to be a pseudo-mum or their best friend. I think sometimes I have been exploited and sometimes they have been exploited, too.'

Certainly Lenka and I had our moments. I had to cope with her occasional teenage sulks, fad diets and endless discussions about whether her friend Paulina was in or out of love with her latest boyfriend. She had to cope with my irrational jealously when George smelt of her overwhelming perfume, and the odd bout of sleep-deprived irritability and criticism. And yet it worked.

As it came closer to the time when she would be leaving I started to explain to George that Lenka was going home on an 'adagar' - his word for aeroplane - to see her mummy. Child psychologist Dr Richard Woolfson assures me the separation will not cause any lasting damage. 'A child does form an attachment but it mirrors what goes on with the parent. There's nothing to be afraid of with change as long as you prepare your child and plant the seed. Explain that "Mary" is going away but she still loves you. Be positive and say this wonderful new person is coming and you are going to get only really well and the child will take the lead from you.'

Another wonderful person has come along. George's eyes light up when Mandy comes in the room and she's quite clearly a positive influence in his life. But Lenka was there for the first 20 months of George's life, witnessed his first smiles, worried when he wasn't eating, copied all my nicknames for him with a curious, mockney accent and sung him Czech lullabies to get him to sleep. She had the sunniest disposition and has definitely helped shape him into the jolly little boy he has become.

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About this article

Keeping mum

This article appeared on p55 of the Observer Magazine section of the Observer
on Saturday 17 August 2002.
It was published on
the Guardian website
at 18.04 EDT on Sunday 18 August 2002.
It was first published at 18.04 EDT on Saturday 17 August 2002.